


Bruvver

by GretchenSinister



Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So, my head-canon is that, sometime after the end of the books’ story-line, Katherine and Nightlight went off in a mini-moonship to have adventures in space together. Fast forward a few centuries to after the events of the movie, when they come back by Earth for whatever reason. Even if it’s just for a visit, everybody’s happy for a reunion with old friends…save for Jack, who’s left feeling like a bit of a fifth wheel.Cue jealous!Jack either acting out or withdrawing from the others to sulk (or both). It’d be particularly nice if he knows he’s being petty and unfair, but can’t help himself because he’s afraid of losing his place among the Guardians.+100 for a specific jealousy of Katherine’s relationship with North (I love the North/Jack father/son combo)+200 for eventual Katherine/Jack/Nightlight friendship.+500 for a Katherine/Nightlight fanbaby. :3"Jack spends far too much time in his own head. Also, it’s gen, but there’s clearly evidence of Katherine/Nightlight. Toddling evidence.





	Bruvver

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr 6/7/2013.
> 
> I didn't tag for the original toddler.

Jack had thought meeting Katherine and Nightlight would be, well, fun. Now, though, he wonders if he had just been picking up on the excitement that all the other Guardians had been feeling, and were still feeling, when they were around them. Because if he really had been excited to meet them, he wouldn’t be up sitting on one of the peaked roofs of the Workshop now, alone, specifically so he could mope around being jealous.

Highly mature, Jack, he thinks to himself. In a very real sense he was meant to be the life of the party, yet here he was, acting like some misanthropic cat. Was that a redundant adjective? He didn’t care. And it didn’t matter. They seemed to be having plenty of fun without him. That was the important thing, along with the fact that Katherine and Nightlight had literally dropped in from outer space into the middle of his group of new friends, after zipping around the cosmos for a couple centuries.

At least, a couple centuries from the Guardians’ perspective. From Katherine and Nightlight’s perspective, they had only been gone a couple decades, which meant that a whole lot less time had been spent on re-establishing relationships than Jack had counted on. If there had been a few centuries between everybody, then Jack could get to know them, and they could get to know Jack, and it wouldn’t have been so different from how they interacted with the rest of the Guardians.

But no. Katherine and Nightlight had both comfortably and immediately begun to reminisce and share stories of their time in space, and Jack had, once again, been left on the periphery. _Not that it would have been easy to be part of some of the conversations, anyway,_ Jack thought, recalling the rapid-fire light-pulse and sand-shape communication between Sandy and Nightlight.

All of this might have been resolved soon enough, but for the reason Katherine and Nightlight had decided to visit in the first place: little Lumina, age two and a half. There was no way he was going to be noticeable to anyone with her around.

After a few hours he had to concede the fact that roof-sulking was neither fun nor productive, and that he had to face up to being superfluous in the happy group again, knowing that flying off would be rightly seen as rude and not help matters.

Still, the visit remains a continual exercise in frustration. He tries to join the conversations, but over and over again they slip away into topics he knows nothing about. He must look ridiculous. Often he finds himself doing nothing more than making faces at Lumina while Katherine and North retell some adventure with sentence fragments and gales of laughter. He can’t shake his jealousy, and he’s sure everyone can tell. After all, he’d never had to hide anything for centuries when he was alone. That’s probably why he’s suddenly doing so poorly at being integrated into the Guardian’s circle. He’s doing so much nothing! No one’s asking him to do anything, and his best behavior doesn’t seem to change anything. He’s not making any impression at all, and he’s almost certain he’d rather be truly invisible again than in this situation.

Then, a week into the visit, Lumina toddles over to him. She’s started to do that fairly frequently, actually. Probably because she’s the only one who can’t tell what a jackass I’ve been making of myself, Jack thinks.

“Lumina, why don’t you tell Jack the new word you learned,” Katherine calls over.

The little girl hugs Jack’s leg to steady herself. She looks up. “Bruvver,” she says, smiling.

In surprise, Jack smiles back at her, and glances back up at Katherine and Nightlight. They’re smiling back at him easily.

Oh.

Maybe this visit was only going badly inside his head, after all.


End file.
